The re-creation of Dinerral Shavers' funeral was filmed at First Fifth African Baptist Church, 3419 S. Robertson, where Shavers' funeral was held January 6, 2007. Present for the scene were many local musicians and Shavers' family members.

"This is the thing about Dinerral," said Glen David Andrews, who attended the funeral and is in the re-creation, during a recent interview. "This is what I loved about him and why I’ll always love him. He was just a real dude, a real great guy. Honestly, what he did for the band at (Rabouin High School), that wasn’t uncommon for him. He looked up to the elders, the Bennie Joneses, the Lionel Batistes. Dinerral was one of the few that always performed with everybody, because he was always the type of guy to extend his hand."

"This was an incredible experience," said Nakita Shavers in an interview. "They came to me and asked if they could do a story on Dinerral. They were very careful in their approach, being that it is a very sensitive topic. They approached me as well as Bennie (Pete) from the Hot 8 to kind of get our approval and everything. My first meeting was with David Simon and all of the big producers and directors and writers. I met Mari (Kornhauser) who is the writer of our particular episode. (Simon) expressed to me that he wanted to make it as authentic as possible, that he wanted to honor Dinerral’s legacy, to tell the story right. Their approach made me want to give them the go-ahead." Read more from Nakita Shavers here.

Colson watches a report by CBS affiliate WWL-TV about the January 2, 2007, surrender into custody of the Danzinger Seven, indicted for murder and attempted murder during the chaotic days immediately after Hurricane Katrina failed levee floodwaters inundated the city. Toni and Andrea watch a report on the same event by Fox affiliate WVUE-TV. Toni considers referring her Abreu case to the Loyola Law Clinic.

Nelson and Liguori dine at Mosca's, 4137 U.S. Highway 90 West in Westwego. "If you're coming from the east bank, a breath-holding trip across the Huey P. Long Bridge is most likely required. It will be worth it," wrote Times-Picayune restaurant critic Brett Anderson in 2009. "You'll start smelling the garlic just before you enter the parking lot, which will undoubtedly be packed. The menu is the same: oysters Mosca. Italian crab salad. Spaghetti bordelaise. Roasted sausage (if the kitchen hasn't run out). Chicken cacciatore, which, despite what everyone says, is often better than the more famous chicken a la grande, which is no slouch. You'll order twice as much as you think you can possibly eat -- and finish every last bite." August. Bayona.

Richard Campanella devotes a section to his book "Time and Place in New Orleans: Past Geographies in the Present Day" to the influx of post-Louisiana Purchase Americans, their impact on the existing Creole population, Canal Street as dividing line between their worlds, and the importance of Cotton to the city's growth in the 1800s. "Offices of cotton professionals clustered in the Central Business District, but the homes of these men were located uptown, predominantly in Lafayette (now the Garden District) in the early days and on St. Charles Avenue and elsewhere uptown in later years," he writes. In his book "Lords of Misrule: Mardi Gras and the Politics of Race in New Orleans," Times-Picayune political columnist James Gill writes about the cultural impact of the Americans on the city. "(F)rom 1803 until the Civil War, New Orleans society was riven by the clash of Creole tradition and the forces of Americanization," he writes. "For awhile, the Creoles, reinforced by the Foreign French, held their own, retaining their grip on politics, real estate and commerce. But, by 1840, the battle was obviously lost; the Creoles were outnumbered by the boisterous and ambitious sons of an alien culture."

'Treme' explained

These posts are intended as an episode-by-episode guide to the many unexplained New Orleans references in the second season of HBO's "Treme."

This post contains spoilers, it also contains a lot of information and links that might help viewers of the series better understand the show's characters and stories, as well as the city and time period in which it's set.

File your own review of this episode here. If you have an explanatory note to supplement this post, type it in the comments section below.

For starters, review a comprehensive archive of the Times-Picayune's Hurricane Katrina coverage, including an animated map of the levee failures. In addition, these books, links,CDs, DVDs and streams might prove helpful. Also, go deep into the musical culture celebrated throughout "Treme" at Nick Spitzer's American Public Media radio series, American Routes. The show is produced in New Orleans, has a searchable archive and holds hundreds of hours of informative, pleasurable listening.

The Standard Oil men were rebuffed by the Carnival-controlling cotton kings and departed for Houston, Liguori says. They could've just waited them out. Errol Laborde, author of several books about Mardi Gras and editor of New Orleans Magazine, said the history of Mardi Gras in New Orleans to its earliest days is expansion toward greater inclusiveness. "Rex's founding mission was to bring more people into Carnival," Laborde said in an interview. The trend continued with the 1930s opening of the Municipal Auditorium and the founding of new krewes by "businessmen who weren't necessarily part of the old guard," Laborde continued. "Another avenue opened up when Bacchus started. The super krewes want as many people as they can get. Anybody who wants to can be included in Carnival. They all can't be King of Comus, but I can't either."

Colson surveys the murder scene at filmmaker Helen Hill's house. "After the flood, Helen Hill ached to return to her adopted city," wrote Times-Picayune reporter Brendan McCarthy in January 2007. "Her husband, Paul Gailiunas, resisted. The storm had destroyed the health clinic he co-founded in the Treme neighborhood to serve the city's poor. Gailiunas, a doctor, fretted about the quality of the air and water, and of life in general, for the couple and their baby son, Francis. Hill's parents in South Carolina, where the couple had retreated in exile, worried, too. They had seen the destruction on television. 'But she had New Orleans in her heart and imagination,' her stepfather, Kevin Lewis, said Friday, a day after Hill was shot dead and her husband wounded inside their Marigny home. 'She was idealistic. She wanted her family and her creative life fulfilled here.'"

Ron Remsberg, played by Phil Austin, explains that Mannie Fresh has a peculiar sense of time. Ron B describes Aunt Mimi to Fresh as "past Jackson." The Garden District Association defines the neighborhood's boundaries as Magazine to Carondelet, Louisiana to Josephine, which is one block down-river of Jackson.

The second-line season runs approximately from late August to Father's Day weekend. "Police have raised fees dramatically for all second-line clubs, saying an increased threat of violence requires them to field more officers, according to a memo from Police Superintendent Warren Riley," wrote Times-Picayune reporter Katy Reckdahl in March 2007. Reckdahl reports on Toni's court action in the scene and later questions Oliver Thomas. "The department first raised the fees in response to a shooting early last year after a big second-line parade. ...The clubs worry that the parades, a revered African-American community tradition, now might be endangered. They say the exorbitant increase -- 530 percent in the case of the Pigeontown parade -- threatens their ability to parade and in essence amounts to a tax for crimes they don't commit and can't control." The ACLU of Louisiana challenged the fee increase in court. ACLU staff attorney Katie Schwartzmann plays herself in the courtroom scene. The judge is U.S. District Court Judge Jay Zainey.

Bassist Cornell Williams is concerned that Antoine will next book the Soul Apostles to play a daiquiri stand, which in some cases would not be a bad gig. Trumpeter Terrell Batiste has a job with the Hot 8 at the Blue Nile, but didn't get a sub. Tim Green is sitting in for Roderick Paulin again.

Liguori appears to draw for Nelson the footprint of a planned medical complex to be shared by Louisiana State University and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs -- its boundaries: Tulane to Canal, Claiborne to South Rocheblave. "LSU began making plans before the storm to replace Charity Hospital, its Depression-era teaching facility that perpetually risked losing accreditation," wrote Times-Picayune reporter Kate Moran in 2008. "A consultant recommended the 37-acre site north of Claiborne for the new hospital in 2005, but the state did not call a public meeting about it until November 2007."

Chef de cuisine Chris Muller introduces Janette to the garde manger line at Le Bernardin.

Toni visits with D. Majeeda Snead at the the Loyola Law Clinic. The Louisiana Pizza Kitchen massacre "was a crime that stood out not only for its brutality but for the furor it touched off among New Orleans citizens: a march on City Hall and a quick reversal by then-Mayor Marc Morial and the City Council to give former police Superintendent Richard Pennington increased funding for his department that had been refused the previous week," wrote Times-Picayune reporter Walt Philbin in December 2006. "On a Sunday morning in December 1996, 10 years ago today, a former employee still bitter about getting fired and two accomplices -- one who had gotten a job as a dishwasher only 10 days earlier -- conned their way into the Louisiana Pizza Kitchen Restaurant near the French Market before opening time. Armed with a .357-caliber Magnum and makeshift potato silencer, they took money from a safe before fatally shooting a manager and two employees as they kneeled in a walk-in cooler. ... A fourth victim was shot in the neck but survived."

Colson discusses the Helen Hill murder with NOPD Deputy Chief Marsden, played by Terence Rosemore. "The murder of filmmaker and mother Helen Hill, at the height of a particularly bloody week in New Orleans, did not match the typical pattern of murder," wrote the Times-Picayune in late January 2007. "Rather, investigators would come to believe, she was attacked randomly in her home by a man she didn't know. Police called to the scene found her husband Paul Gailiunas shot and bleeding, clutching their 2-year-old son. Along with the spate of other murders in a period of just days, the Hill murder in particular galvanized the city for an unprecendented ant-crime march, where thousands gathered at City Hall, berated the mayor and police chief and demanded action in the fight against crime." An archive of Times-Picayune stories about the killing and its victim. An ABC "Nightline" report from 2007 about Hill's death, New Orleans crime, and the march.

A great place to learn more about Hill's life and work is a website, www.HelenHill.org, maintained by her friends. In a 2008 documentary about Hill, "Celebrating a Life in Film," Penelope Rawl, Hill's fifth-grade teacher, says, "I can't remember a single morning when Helen came in and she didn't have a smile on her face."

The march: "In a sharp response to the recent spate of killings, hundreds of citizens are planning to march on City Hall this morning, converging on the city's leaders from at least three different neighborhoods," wrote reporters Brendan McCarthy and Laura Maggi in the January 10, 2007 edition of the Times-Picayune. "Some marchers are close friends of victims. Others said they are simply dissatisfied with the city's leadership and its response to the violence. ... The killings of (Helen) Hill and Dinerral Shavers, a teacher and drummer for the Hot 8 Brass Band who was shot to death in late December, have galvanized many citizens -- some of whom have never marched or rallied before."

From McCarthy's next-day account of the march and concluding rally, at which Andrews and Nakita Shavers were speakers:

For about an hour at Thursday's extraordinary anticrime rally, Mayor Ray Nagin stood awkwardly behind a stage on the steps of City Hall, waiting for his chance to talk, listening to speakers castigate him and call for his ouster.

One by one, a diverse and agitated series of orators shouted down the mayor, as well as Police Chief Warren Riley and District Attorney Eddie Jordan, with most of the vitriol directed at Nagin. Then came the moment of silence, with heads bowed, camera shutters snapping.

"Where the hell is Nagin?" one man screamed, piercing the prayerful moment with rage at the city's leadership.

"What do you have to say Ray?" came a voice from a crowd of thousands.